Wednesday, 24 September 2014

BRITISH LABOUR PARTY BIAS IS APPALLING.

Statements made by Ed Miliband and his Shadow Foreign
Minister, Douglas Alexander at the Labour Party Conference on Monday, September
22, were appalling for their one-sided bias against Israel.

Although they paid lip service to a condemnation of “Hamas
rockets and the terrorization of civilian populations” the only use of the
word “illegal” was in reference to Israeli building, and the only use of
the word “immoral” was for settlements, which they described as being
done “on other peoples land.”

No room for doubt or uncertainty there. No consideration for
a view that the land belongs, both historically and legally, to Israel under international
law dating back to 1922 and beyond. No mention of the fact that this is
enshrined in the United Nations Charter, including the reference to “close
Jewish settlement” of the land. All
that, and more, was wiped away by a Labour leadership that ignores facts and
history, overlooks Palestinian crimes and rejectionism, in favour of condemning
Israel of criminality.

Further, they denounced Israel’s need to enter Gaza for what
they called “an Israeli invasion…to perpetuate the cycle of violence, tragedy,
and loss of innocent life.”

No mention of the necessity to eradicate the Palestinian
terror attack tunnels, to denude Hamas of their rocket stockpile, or to
eradicate one thousand two hundred Gaza-based terrorists who threatened and
murdered Israeli civilians for decades.

Their moral equivalency has tilted so radically that their
language reflects a world in which Palestinians are naughty for firing rockets
and for murdering Israeli civilians, including babies and teenagers, while
Israel is criminal for building houses on land that is legitimately under its
control, despite them claiming otherwise.

Let Miliband and Alexander go back to the statute books and
do some revision. Let them start by reading the League of Nations Mandate for
Palestine, then proceed to the UN Charter Article 80. They should finish off by
reading the wording of the Oslo Accords to which Britain was a witness and
guarantor. All these preserve and define Israel’s legitimacy to act in the territories.

Demanding that Israel surrender more territory is not a potion for peace. It is
a remedy for further violence. Israel sees what Miliband fails to see, that an
Israeli withdrawal from Judea & Samaria will follow the pattern of our evacuation
from Gaza. We removed ourselves from every settlement, we forcefully evicted
thousands of Jews, handed over an agricultural oasis to the Palestinians and,
in return, got suicide bombers, rockets, and terror tunnels.

Will Miliband
guarantee that this will not happen should Israel listen to his ill-advise and withdraw
from the Samarian and Judean hills, leaving Hamas to take over the West Bank, by
ballot or by bullet, as they did in the Gaza Strip?

Britain may lurch to the left in the next general election
but, following recent experiences both by the Palestinian Authority and from
Hamas, Israel has moved right of centre with the vast majority of Israelis
totally distrusting Palestinian intentions, and deeply cynical of politicians
such as Miliband.

If Miliband wants peace let him task his Labour Friends of
Palestine to produce a reformed and pragmatic Hamas and to persuade the
Fatah-led Palestinian Authority to recognize the right of the Jewish people to
live in peace in the Land of Israel.

For, if there is a monster in the room, it
is not an Israeli building his home in Maale Adumim or Ariel, it is the monster
of Hamas terrorism, the rejectionism of Mahmoud Abbas, and the rapid
anti-Semitism of them both that is the major obstacle to peace.

Based on recent statements by Miliband and Alexander, a
future Labour-led Britain can contribute nothing to peace, neither for Israel,
nor for the Palestinians.